January 15, 2026
By Vanguard Enterprise Intelligence Unit with the work of Joseph Nye, Ian Bremmer, Pankaj Ghemawat, Michael Porter, and Henry Farrell.

Power is becoming harder to exercise because the world is becoming harder to align. For decades, global business operated inside a relatively stable assumption: markets could expand across borders, institutions would gradually converge, and commercial logic could often soften political tension. That assumption has weakened. The world is not simply globalizing or deglobalizing. It is fragmenting into overlapping spheres of influence, regulatory systems, security priorities, economic alliances, and national narratives.

This changes the nature of leadership. Executives can no longer assume that influence comes primarily from scale, capital, technology, or market access. Those assets still matter, but they are no longer sufficient. In a multipolar environment, influence depends on the ability to build coalitions, understand political incentives, control narratives, manage dependencies, and create leverage without destroying trust.

The modern leader must operate more like a diplomat than a traditional corporate manager. He must understand stakeholders who do not share the same assumptions, governments that prioritize sovereignty over efficiency, customers shaped by national identity, employees exposed to fragmented information ecosystems, and partners who may be commercially useful but politically risky. Influence is no longer a soft skill at the edge of strategy. It is becoming strategy itself.

This is the central challenge of power in 2026. The world has more networks, but less consensus. More communication, but less shared reality. More economic interdependence, but less political trust. Leaders must learn to exercise influence in a world where alignment cannot be assumed and authority is increasingly contested.

The New Map of Power

The old map of global corporate power was built around markets, capital, production, and distribution. The company with the strongest balance sheet, the largest customer base, the deepest supply chain, or the most advanced technology often had the strongest position. That map still matters. But it now sits inside a larger map shaped by geopolitics.

National security has moved into commercial strategy. Data flows have become political. Supply chains have become strategic infrastructure. Energy access has become industrial policy. Technology standards have become instruments of influence. Investment decisions are increasingly judged through the lens of sovereignty, resilience, and alignment.

This means that corporate influence now depends on understanding power beyond the firm. A company may dominate a market but remain vulnerable to export controls. It may control valuable technology but depend on politically sensitive suppliers. It may have global customers but face local regulatory distrust. It may possess capital but lack legitimacy in the communities or countries where it wants to operate.

Influence therefore begins with a broader question: where does power actually sit? It may sit with governments, regulators, state-owned enterprises, platform companies, suppliers, unions, local communities, investors, standards bodies, media ecosystems, or informal networks. It may sit with actors who never appear on a formal org chart but can determine whether a strategy succeeds.

Executives who misread this map confuse authority with influence. Authority is the right to decide. Influence is the ability to make decisions durable in the world outside the company. In fragmented environments, influence often matters more.

Coalition-Building in a Multipolar Economy

Coalition-building is the central skill of fragmented-world leadership. In stable environments, leaders can often execute through hierarchy. In fragmented environments, they must assemble temporary alignments among actors with different interests.

This is especially true in international business. A company entering a strategic market may need support from national regulators, local suppliers, community leaders, financing partners, technology vendors, labor groups, and sometimes foreign governments. A supply-chain redesign may require collaboration across competitors, logistics providers, customs agencies, and industry associations. A data-center investment may require alignment among energy providers, grid operators, local communities, environmental authorities, and national security reviewers.

Coalitions are not built through general goodwill. They are built through aligned interests. Leaders must understand what each actor wants, what each actor fears, and what each actor needs to justify cooperation. A government may want jobs, sovereignty, security, or domestic capability. A local community may want employment, infrastructure, environmental safeguards, and respect. A supplier may want predictable demand and technology transfer. An investor may want risk-adjusted returns. A regulator may want evidence of control.

The mistake companies make is assuming that their own business case should persuade everyone else. It rarely does. Influence requires translating the company’s strategy into the priorities of others. The question is not only why the initiative makes sense for the firm. It is why it makes sense for the coalition.

This is why executives must learn the discipline of interest architecture. They must design strategies where enough actors can see their interests protected or advanced. Without that architecture, even technically sound strategies can fail politically.

Narrative Control and Strategic Legitimacy

In a fragmented world, power is exercised not only through resources, but through narrative. The story attached to a company’s action can determine whether it is perceived as investment or exploitation, innovation or threat, resilience or protectionism, responsibility or hypocrisy.

Narrative control does not mean propaganda. It means understanding that stakeholders interpret corporate behavior through political, cultural, and emotional frames. A factory investment may be seen as job creation in one market and as strategic dependency in another. An AI deployment may be seen as productivity improvement by executives and as workforce threat by employees. A sustainability initiative may be seen as responsible leadership by some stakeholders and ideological signaling by others.

Leaders must therefore communicate with precision. They should avoid broad claims that collapse under scrutiny. They should explain what they are doing, why it matters, who benefits, what safeguards exist, and what tradeoffs remain. In low-trust environments, credibility depends less on polish and more on coherence.

Strategic legitimacy is built when words, incentives, and actions align. If a company claims to support local development but imports most high-value work from elsewhere, the narrative will fail. If it claims responsible AI but cannot explain human oversight, the narrative will fail. If it claims supply-chain resilience but quietly depends on fragile single-source inputs, the narrative will fail. Narrative control is not merely a communications function. It is the discipline of ensuring that the company’s story is true enough to survive contact with reality.

The firms that manage narrative well do not simply speak louder. They make themselves easier to trust.

Leverage Without Overreach

Leverage is the ability to shape another actor’s choices. In a fragmented world, leverage comes from many sources: market access, technology, capital, data, standards, talent, infrastructure, regulatory approval, supply-chain position, and public legitimacy. But leverage must be used carefully. Too little leverage leaves a company exposed. Too much visible leverage can produce backlash.

This is one of the paradoxes of modern power. Dominance can weaken influence if it creates fear. A company that appears too powerful may invite regulation, customer resistance, employee distrust, or nationalist backlash. A platform that controls access may gain revenue but lose legitimacy. A supplier that exploits scarcity may win the quarter but damage long-term relationships. A government that weaponizes economic dependency may encourage others to build alternatives.

Durable influence therefore requires restraint. Leaders should use leverage to create negotiated alignment, not permanent humiliation. They should ask whether a counterpart can accept the agreement publicly. They should consider whether today’s pressure will create tomorrow’s resistance. They should recognize that in networked environments, actors who feel trapped often search for escape.

The best negotiators in fragmented systems do not maximize every immediate advantage. They preserve future optionality. They understand that the strongest position is not one in which the other side has no choice. It is one in which the other side continues to choose cooperation because the relationship remains valuable.

Power that cannot preserve relationships is not strategic. It is merely forceful.

Case Pattern: The Strategic Market Entry

Consider the case pattern of a multinational technology company entering a market where the government wants domestic AI capability, regulators are concerned about data sovereignty, local firms fear displacement, and civil society worries about surveillance. The company’s commercial instinct may be to emphasize product superiority, investment size, and speed of deployment. But those arguments alone are insufficient.

The government may care less about the product and more about national capability. Regulators may care less about innovation and more about data control. Local firms may care less about partnership language and more about whether value will remain in the country. Civil society may care less about efficiency and more about rights and accountability.

A successful influence strategy would build a coalition around shared value. The company might localize data storage, invest in local talent, partner with domestic firms, establish transparent AI governance, support open standards where possible, and create public reporting on safeguards. These moves may raise costs. But they also create legitimacy.

The point is not that every demand should be accepted. The point is that influence requires understanding the political economy of acceptance. A company that wins formal approval but loses stakeholder trust may find its position unstable. A company that builds legitimacy into market entry may move more slowly at first but operate with greater durability.

Case Pattern: The Supply-Chain Realignment

A second case pattern appears in supply-chain restructuring. A manufacturer dependent on politically sensitive components may decide to diversify production. On paper, the decision is about resilience. In practice, it affects governments, suppliers, workers, customers, investors, and communities across several regions.

The incumbent supplier may view diversification as betrayal. A new host country may view the investment as strategic validation. The original host country may interpret the move as geopolitical alignment. Workers may fear job loss. Customers may worry about cost and reliability. Investors may question margin pressure.

The leader’s influence task is to prevent a resilience strategy from becoming a relationship crisis. That requires sequencing, transparency, and coalition-building. The company may need to explain that diversification is not abandonment, that dual sourcing protects customers, that new investments create continuity, and that existing partners remain valued where performance and risk permit.

Influence in this context depends on narrative and leverage. The company must preserve enough optionality to reduce dependency while maintaining enough trust to avoid unnecessary rupture. The goal is not only to redesign the supply chain. It is to redesign the political meaning of the supply chain.

Mapping Influence Networks

Executives need a practical model for mapping influence. The first step is to identify the formal decision-makers. These include regulators, ministers, boards, procurement bodies, customers, investors, and executive sponsors. Formal authority matters because it determines official approval.

The second step is to identify informal influencers. These may include local business groups, industry associations, labor leaders, civil-society organizations, technical experts, journalists, community figures, standards bodies, and former officials. These actors may not sign the agreement, but they shape whether the agreement is trusted.

The third step is to map dependencies. Who depends on whom for capital, technology, legitimacy, supply, data, infrastructure, labor, market access, or political support? Dependencies reveal leverage. They also reveal vulnerability.

The fourth step is to understand narratives. What story does each stakeholder currently believe? Does it see the company as partner, threat, outsider, innovator, exploiter, stabilizer, or geopolitical instrument? Influence requires shifting narratives where they are inaccurate and adapting strategy where they are justified.

The fifth step is to identify coalition logic. Which actors can be aligned around a shared outcome? Which actors require reassurance? Which actors cannot be satisfied without compromising core principles? Which relationships must be built before negotiation begins?

Influence mapping should not be performed only during crisis. It should become a regular strategic discipline. In fragmented environments, stakeholder maps change quickly.

The Leadership Model for Fragmented Power

Leaders need a different influence model for 2026. The first capability is geopolitical literacy. Executives must understand how policy, security, national identity, sanctions, industrial strategy, data rules, and public sentiment shape commercial outcomes. This does not mean every leader must become a foreign-policy expert. It means leaders must stop treating geopolitics as background noise.

The second capability is narrative discipline. Leaders must be able to explain strategy in ways that are accurate, stakeholder-specific, and defensible. They must avoid both empty diplomacy and aggressive messaging. In polarized environments, careless language can create strategic damage.

The third capability is coalition design. Leaders must know how to assemble support among actors whose interests overlap but do not fully align. This requires patience, listening, sequencing, and the ability to create shared wins without surrendering core objectives.

The fourth capability is leverage judgment. Leaders must understand when to press, when to hold, when to compromise, and when to walk away. Leverage used poorly can destroy the trust required for future influence.

The fifth capability is institutional consistency. A company cannot influence credibly if its behavior changes opportunistically across markets. Local adaptation is necessary, but core standards must remain clear. Without consistency, the firm becomes easy to accuse of hypocrisy.

Turning Volatility into Advantage

Volatility creates risk, but it also creates openings. When alliances shift, supply chains move, and institutions search for new partners, companies with trusted capabilities can gain influence. A firm that can provide resilient infrastructure, responsible technology, reliable investment, local talent development, or credible governance may become more valuable in a fragmented world than it was in a stable one.

The advantage belongs to companies that are seen as useful and trustworthy. Usefulness without trust creates dependency anxiety. Trust without usefulness creates goodwill but little power. Influence requires both.

Executives should therefore ask where their company can become a preferred partner in uncertain systems. Can it help governments build resilient capacity without appearing extractive? Can it help customers manage geopolitical risk? Can it support suppliers through transition? Can it set standards that others choose to follow? Can it provide technology in ways that respect local sovereignty and human rights? Can it communicate consistently enough to earn trust across divides?

This is how volatility becomes advantage. Not by exploiting confusion, but by becoming a stabilizing actor inside it.

Strategic Recommendations for Executives

Leaders should begin by building an influence map before major strategic moves. Market entry, supply-chain redesign, data-center investment, AI deployment, mergers, and geopolitical exposure all require more than financial analysis. They require stakeholder, narrative, and leverage analysis.

They should then develop coalition strategies, not only negotiation strategies. A negotiation focuses on the counterparty at the table. A coalition strategy focuses on the broader system that makes the agreement durable. In fragmented environments, the people outside the room often determine whether the deal survives.

Executives should also invest in narrative credibility. The company’s public explanation should match its operating reality. If the firm claims local commitment, it should invest locally. If it claims responsible technology, it should govern technology responsibly. If it claims neutrality, it should understand when neutrality is credible and when it appears evasive.

Leaders should preserve optionality. Dependency reduces influence. Companies need alternative suppliers, flexible capital plans, diversified partnerships, and the ability to operate under different regulatory regimes. Optionality gives leaders room to negotiate without desperation.

Finally, companies should define their non-negotiables. In a fragmented world, pressure to compromise will rise. Firms need clear standards around corruption, human rights, data misuse, surveillance, sanctions exposure, labor exploitation, and environmental claims. Influence built by abandoning principles is unstable. It may secure access, but it weakens legitimacy.

The Real Nature of Power

Power in a fragmented world is not merely the ability to win. It is the ability to align enough actors for long enough to create durable outcomes. That requires more than scale. It requires judgment.

The companies that fail will assume their old advantages still work. They will rely on size, capital, technology, or brand reputation while ignoring the political and social systems around them. They will enter negotiations without understanding narratives. They will use leverage without restraint. They will discover that formal approval does not equal durable influence.

The companies that succeed will operate differently. They will map power before they exercise it. They will build coalitions before they need them. They will communicate with discipline. They will use leverage to create alignment rather than resentment. They will treat geopolitics not as a disruption, but as a permanent dimension of strategy.

In the old global economy, influence often followed expansion. In the new one, influence must be earned before expansion can endure.

That is the executive challenge of 2026: to build power that can travel across divides without losing legitimacy when it arrives.